Lab #8

MAPPING THE STATION FIRE IN ARCGIS

The infamous Station Fire occurred in Los Angeles County during late August and early September of 2009.  The fire was the biggest in LA County’s modern history and the tenth largest in the history of California, spreading to over 160,000 acres and destroying nearly one hundred homes.  Starting on August 26, the fire grew rapidly but for the most part without the help of strong winds, before finally being completely contained on October 16.  The cost of the wildfire is estimated at around $90 million, taking the lives of two firefighters in the process, and is now believed to be a case of arson. 

According to the set of perimeters we have spanning from August 29^thto September 2^nd, the Station Fire first appears as a concentrated almost circular region starting out in the San Gabriel Mountains.  It initially grew east and west, before rapidly spreading northwest in a rectangular offshoot, the whole fire shaped like a rough capital “L” early on the 30^th of August.  From there, it exploded east, more than doubling in size by the 31^st.  The fire continued to grow east and west during the first two days of September, turning into a rough sideways oval shape with two branches of fire pushing out further east, until finally looking almost like a lobster claw with the pincers facing east by September 2^nd.  

I have included a state map of California with Los Angeles County highlighted in yellow and the total affected area by September 2^nd in bright red to show the breadth of the fire on a state-wide scale, and give a better idea of where exactly the fire and the county are located.  Next to the state map is a reference map showing the spread of the fire in semi-transparent layers overlaid on top of the hillshade of the region to show how the fire grew in respect to the local topography.  It appears that the fire was contained on the southernmost side by the San Gabriel Mountains, as it could not climb over the tops of the mountains. Instead the fire spread horizontally to the east and west as well as north away from band of mountains.

My thematic map looks at the campgrounds in LA County that were at risk from the Station Fire.  Starting on August 29^th, there were only two campgrounds in the fires grasp, the Oakwilde Trail Camp and the Switzer Camp.  On the 30^th, twelve more campgrounds were inside the fire’s boundary, and fourteen more on the 31^st.  September 1^st and 2^nd saw ten and eight additional campgrounds within the fire’s range, bringing the total for the five days to 46 campsites at risk.  These campsites would have needed to be evacuated, as most of them were consumed and destroyed by the Station Fire.  The Angeles Crest Highway (part of California State Route 2) is the biggest highway near most of the campsites in question, and would have had to been utilized for evacuation purposes before the road itself was engulfed by the fire. 

The maps I have included in my report provide insight into the location and spread of the Station Fire, as well as its devastating effect on the campsites of the region.  In addition to the possible structural damage sustained by established campsites, the surrounding forests were incinerated and it will be years before the land recovers enough to support camping again.

Bibliography:

CNN. "Investigation under way into cause of Station fire." CNN U.S.. N.p., 1 Sept. 2009. Web. 9 June 2011. <http://articles.cnn.com/2009-09-01/us/california.wildfires_1_angeles-national-forest-fire-officials-fire-chief-mike-dietrich?_s=PM:US>.

InciWeb. "InciWeb the Incident Information System: Station Fire News Release." InciWeb the Incident Information System: Current Incidents. N.p., 27 Sept. 2009. Web. 9 June 2011. <http://inciweb.org/incident/article/9640/>.

InciWeb. "InciWeb the Incident Information System: Station Fire." InciWeb the Incident Information System: Current Incidents. N.p., 10 Nov. 2009. Web. 9 June 2011. <http://inciweb.org/incident/1856/>.

KTLA News. "Report: Number of Firefighters Reduced Before Station Fire."KTLA.com. N.p., 2 Oct. 2009. Web. 9 June 2011. <www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-angeles-fire,0,5292469.story>.

LA Times. "Station fire is largest in L.A. County's modern history." Los Angeles Times. N.p., 2 Sept. 2009. Web. 9 June 2011. <http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/09/station-fire-is-largest-in-la-county-history.html>.

"Station Fire." California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. N.p., 16 Oct. 2009. Web. 9 June 2011. <cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_details_info?incident_id=377>

ARCMAP

When using GIS, there are several benefits, and of course, disadvantages. A main concern for most people, would of course, be it's complexity and excessive details. Even though this does serve as a benefit to geographers and several other GIS scholars, it is frustrating and aggravating for students who are beginners in the program. Some of the difficulties are that even though there is an amazingly detailed tutorial, there are some technicalities that are beyond reach of the tutorial and are therefore difficult to answer. I experienced this many times when my screen was not exactly the same as the tutorial's window, which made it impossible for me to find some of the keys and tabs. This also brings me to my next point.

As a Mac user, not only did I have to install a pc windows on my Mac, but I had to log into an on-campus computer, which caused the program to be slow and freeze a few times. I had to restart my laptop about 5 times because "someone had changed the network or airport." Luckily, my work was still saved, but the amount of time it took to retrieve it was more than a few minutes. Lastly, another problem with this is that I had to get used to navigating a Mac windows and a PC windows at the same time, and going back and forth transferring downloads.

On the bright side, using GIS helps us understand every inch, literally, of the world. Unlike a map, GIS is more specific and can answer questions about distance, change, etc. Since it is all technological, it allows for quick updates and ready access to all sorts of data. Not only does this conduct better analysis, but it uses this analysis to answer our questions about Earth's locations.

Personally, I though this lab was a bit tedious, just because there were a couple of questions about the system I had and could not ask because it was more of a computer problem. I do have to admit though, the tutorial was beyond detailed and therefore successfully helped me navigate through the ArcMap, which I had never in my life used before.

KoreaTown Tour Lab #3

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

Lab2

1.)  The name of the quadrangle is called “Beverly Hills Quadrangle”.

2.)  The adjacent quadrangles include Canoga Park, Van Nuys, Burbank, Topanga, Hollywood, Venice, and Inglewood.

3.)  The quadrangle was first created in 1966, when the topography was first compiled.

4.)  The two different datum included in this quadrangle are North American Datum of 1927, and North American Datum of 1983.

5.)   The fractional scale on the map is 1: 24,000, which means that every one inch on the map represents 24,000 inches on the ground.

6.)  At the above scale, answer the following:

a.     5cm on the map= 1200m on the ground.

b.     5in on the map= 2miles on the ground.

c.      3km on the ground= 7200cm on the map.

7.)  The contour interval of this map is 20 feet.

8.)  Coordinates.

a.     37^71 and 3^67 are the coordinates of the Public Affairs building.

b.     37^64 and 34º are the coordinates for the tip of Santa Monica Pier.

9.)  Elevation.

10.) The UTM zone of the map is Zone 11, 10000-foot ticks.

11.) The UTM coordinates are 118º30.

12.) Each cell of the UTM gridline contains 1000 meters.

13.) 

14.) The magnetic declination of the map is 14º.

15.) The water of the intermittent stream between the 405 freeway and Stone Canyon Reservoir flows from North to South. This is found by looking at the contour lines of elevation.

16.)

1

Maps that caught my eye.

This map comes from a website which is titled "Maps and catograms of the 2004 US presidential election results" by Michael Gastner, Cosma Shalizi, and Mark Newman from the University of Michigan. This map indicates the number of Republican and Democratic votes during the 2004 presidential election. What I found interesting about this map is that although there appears to be a dramatic contrast between red and blue, the difference between the two parties' votes is not that extreme. While I was reading the description, the author reminded us that the inner states have lower populations than the outer states, which are mostly blue. After taking this into consideration, the map is no longer as extreme as it appears to be. This made me think that the map might be biased because one who looks at the map and only reads the one-sentence description, might misunderstand the colors and think that there are mainly Republican votes in the United States.

This map is titled “College Degrees by County,” from the maproomblog.com, and demonstrates the education level in every area of the United States in 2009. I found this interesting because the dark blue indicates the ‘educated elite,’ and not surprisingly, the areas with this color are most visible in the Los Angeles area in California, and in the Far East with areas such as New York, New Jersey, etc, where the best Universities and largest corporations are located. Another detail that catches the eye immediately is the amount of red there is distributed through out the country. Red indicates ‘well below average,’ and in states such as Texas, North Dakota, and Tennessee, red even dominates the entire state. As a Unites States’ citizen, this is shocking, especially when comparing these statistics to statistics in other countries such as Japan or China

This map is titled “Juvenile suicide rates varied considerably across states,” compiled by CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, in the website ncjrs.gov. It shows the annual suicides per 1 million juveniles from the age of 7-17. The dark blue demonstrates 46-69 suicides, and the white represents 15-25. I found this especially interesting because once again, there is an obvious area, the West-Mid states, where there is only dark blue, meaning high suicide rates. This makes me wonder what is different from California, and the other states, that accounts for high numbers of suicide rates. Not only is California about 1/7 white states, but it is also the only white state in the entire West Coast. Another detail I am also taking into consideration after analyzing the first map I posted, is the population numbers in the inner states. This works oppositely in this case because even though there is a lower population in these states, there are higher juvenile suicide rates, making the statistics even more dramatic.